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I am a brand-new caregiver. For almost two years my wife has been suffering from dementia, the category into which she was placed after the discovery that her spinal fluid had been misrouted through her brain - in my engineering mind, she had a valve fail. She had been able to do some chores around the house but her real persona had been disrupted. Then three weeks ago, she suffered a mini-stroke, called a TIA. It really changed her. The things she had been able to do before it hit were difficult or impossible for her now.

My mother was diagnosed over 3 years ago. She had other health issues that either helped the process along or were the cause of her final passing this last April. Like most she died from pneumonia, respiratory failure. When I was a teenager, as most daughters do at that age, I fought with my mother constantly. When I became a parent myself, we grew to be best friends. We did everything together and shared everything. The day my mother died from this horrible disease was both happy and sad. Happy that she was no longer trapped in a mind that confused and frightened her.

Mom passed almost 4 years ago from Alzheimer's. It was heart breaking to watch the best parts of her personality fade away. Mom's kind, loving, trusting traits disappeared and changed into hateful outbursts, paranoid thoughts and fear filled behavior. At first we had no idea what was happening to her. We were unable to keep her safe as she wandered at night, made up lies to cover the confusion in her mind, and her multiple falls leading to broken bones. As the Alzheimer's progressed, she required expensive 24-hour care. The disease divided our family as we watched mom's suffering.